Inside ZSR
My Saturday afternoon at ALA Midwinter went from the sublime to the sublime. First I got to hear Al Gore speak about his new book Our Choice: A Plan to Save The Earth — he was inspiring as always (if you find him inspiring as I do). He made some interesting points about the information... more ›
Today I had the pleasure of watching as the LITA “Top Technology Trends” torch was passed to a new group of “trendsters” that included our very own Lauren Pressley. Top Technology Trends is a highly regarded semi-annual event at ALA where the top names in the library technology field predict next year’s top trends. The... more ›
My first full day at ALA Midwinter 2010 was chock full of meetings, discussions, exhibits and renewing acquaintances. Our hotel is close to Boston Common, not far from Beacon Hill. The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center is farther than a walk away, so the first order of business was to familiarize myself with the conference... more ›
Spent the morning in a committee meeting and then had lunch on EBSCO for their Academic Librarian’s Lunch. They usually make interesting announcements at these things (in Chicago this past summer they announced their Discovery Service) so I was curious as to what was coming. Two items of interest came out. First EBSCO is tweaking... more ›
Sunday at ALA was a busy day for me. It started off with me attending a program sponsored by the Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) of ACRL titled “Chicago’s Ethnic Mosaic: Cultural Identity and Neighborhood Change”. Although I only stayed two of the four hours program, I heard and learned much on the history of... more ›
I started Monday morning off with a session entitled, “Resuscitating the Catalog: Next-Generation Strategies for Keeping the Catalog Relevant.”Four panelists discussed OCLC initiatives, and the public and academic library experience with the catalog.Several of the most helpful comments came from Beth Jefferson of Bibliocommons in Ontario.She has studied both public and academic libraries in Ontario,... more ›
Sunday morning started early at the Alexander Street Press breakfast, where they shared information about their upcoming releases.Breakfast was great and they had a very interesting speaker, Gary Giddens, a jazz critic and writer, who spoke about his career in journalism and his long connection with jazz music.After checking out the exhibits and Lauren P.’s... more ›
After arriving on Thursday afternoon and practicing our preconference presentation a few times, Lauren P. and I headed to our preconference on Friday.The preconference was held in the Fairmont Hotel, which was just around the corner from where we were staying, so we didn’t have far to travel!The session went really well and went by... more ›
On Saturday, I attended “Workflow Tools for Automating Metadata Creation and Maintenance” which was a panel discussion comprised of individuals who work on digital projects at their institutions. Much of the talk was highly technical and I didn’t quite understand everything, but one of the most interesting projects discussed was by Brown University’s Ann Caldwell,... more ›
A hurt neck kept me from lugging my laptop around combined with a lack of reasonably priced internet anywhere near my hotel kept me off the “real” internet for much of the conference. This was the first ALA I have attended where there were days that I didn’t carry a computer, and it made for... more ›